Part 134 (1/2)
At last Octavian hi saluted as the conqueror of the world, wearing the crown, rather than having it merely held over his head by a slave And thenO sha behind the chariot, in chains, were Selene and Alexander, with little Philadelphos between thee depiction of their mother, snakes twined around her ar, her fists clenched Was she supposed to be dying? She was stretched on her couch, but not limply She radiated power and purpose Was it to depict her as the rapacious enemy who had posed such a threat to Rome? Whatever it was, it caused the crowd to cry out, to cheer Were they applauding her or rejoicing? Possibly both The snakes suggested Isis as well as her death It was not unworthy of her So she had eluded Octavian's victory parade, and this was his way of saluting her for it: the eneer than life
Beside the picture an actor walked, reciting some of Horace's poe: She did not, like a woe her Egypt for obscurer shores, But But gazing on her desolated palace gazing on her desolated palace With a calry asps until Her veins had drunk the deadly poison deep:
And, death-deterrace a haughty triumph, Dethroned, paraded by The rude Liburnians? Not Cleopatra
As the parade concluded, Octavian dismounted from the chariot and motioned to the children Nohen prisoners were taken off to a prison cell to be strangled while the victor gave solemn thanks at the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus But Octavian took Antony and Cleopatra's children with him to mount the steps up to the Temple Thereafter they vanished back into his household the parade concluded, Octavian dismounted from the chariot and motioned to the children Nohen prisoners were taken off to a prison cell to be strangled while the victor gave solemn thanks at the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus But Octavian took Antony and Cleopatra's children with him to mount the steps up to the Temple Thereafter they vanished back into his household
There were yet two ceremonies to be observed, tacked onto the end of the Triumph The doors to the Te an end to war And Octavian made his way to Caesar's teyptian spoils
Then it was over, and the general celebrations could begin--the eating, drinking, dancing I shall not describe it; all crowd celebrations are the sah the mob to reach Caesar's Temple of Venus Genetrix in his Foru ifbut Octavian was a surprising rant him that
And he surprisedwhere Caesar had placed it seventeen years ago was the gold statue of Cleopatra as Goddess and consort The enened supreme and honored in this house of Caesar; so revered was Caesar that no one dared attack the statue Or perhaps it was e and a resolute foe above everything else, secretly wished to honor their greatest adversary and keep her where, over the years, they could pay her hoain, e how death does not stop us froes we go through: At first, when the gulf is recent and therefore not so wide, we chatter freely, feeling the on the to the empty seat--that creates a thick wall between us Then ti, dissolves the barrier and we are back where we started, close again
Such has happened to ards to you And once that separation had vanished, I was able to set out to complete the journey that you entrusted to me
Oh yes, the scrolls are bulky and heavy They require a stout trunk to house them I have all ten of the to the Kandake You always knew that we must help chance to triuood to leave Alexandria; you were right about that My e, as I have become monstrously famous--or notorious--as the Queen's physician They creditto do, and withbut his luck in being bitten last, and being so bulky The notoriety is a nuisance, and keeps thy excursion to Meroe is h the canal, then down the Nile, I aypt never changes: the same palood to remind myself of that Here, beyond Memphis, I question whether they even know that Octavian is the new ”Pharaoh”
Yes, he has e as your heir--isn't that a in Alexander, Selene, and Philadelphos, and rearing them in his Roman household, he pretends to continuity of the line I understand carvers are busy in te to Osiris and Horus But I do not plan to stop and look at theyptalways unique The new ”Pharaoh” has declared it a special province, one that no prominent Roman may even visit without express perantic park, Octavian's own playground Cornelius Gallus will oversee it, but he is not its governor It has no governor
Timeless eddies on the river, sandbanks with crocodiles, temples, sand, papyrus reeds, and the wide bosoet everything else, and let ti all the way to Meroe There has lately been some trouble around the First Cataract between the Nubians and the Romans, and I think it safer to make my way south first I must confess that I plan to question the physicians of Meroe and take back samples of any et there
I have arrived It has taken me four months! Months in which to read your account of your own journey here, past all the cataracts It is not sohtly undertaken Now the city looms before me, and the banks are lined with the curious I can only hope that the Kandake is still well, and reigns Odd hoe think distance can confer longevity as well
She has received reat h her palace She was rhapsodical about you, recalling your visit to her so o
”But I warned her about the Roer ”I told her to stay away from them, and to make an alliance with ed bench, with the proffered chest of scrolls at her feet
”I think it was they who could not stay away from her,” I said And it was true
”I told her I would avenge her when the Ro with!--let her down And I have” She nodded solemnly ”I have” She pointed to her left eye, which was blind ”I have surrendered my eye to the Roht to take Philae along with the rest of Egypt! Our holy precinct, and the estates south of the cataract! They declared it a protectorate, and even put their filthy statues of Octavian in the temples! I could not allow it No, I could not It was not to be borne” She rose, slowly, like ato its feet ”I will show you e did!”
Like an island that h the vast halls of her palace and led ave some commands in Meroitic to her attendants, who scurried away and then returned with shovels to start digging
”I led my omen on a raid to the temple, while the rest of my army attacked Philae itself, Aswan, and the Elephantine Island, and routed the Ro ht in it” She seee of honor ”But I can see well enough with the re one!” She turned it fiercely on me
”Oh, we scattered theh No We needed to do this” this” She pointed to the hole that was being dug before the te into view deep in it She pointed to the hole that was being dug before the te into view deep in it
As the , the object revealed itself to be a bronze head, which e to the surface The workmen pulled it out and held it up, where it stared balefully at us, sand streae head of Octavian, the eyes looking sadly at us, starkly white against the green tarnish of the bronze They
”We decapitated his statue, the one he had boldly set up inside the holy quarters Then we brought it back here and did a ritual desecration on it, burying it in front of the teesture was unnerving I felt myself to be in a very alien place indeed Octavian's severed head kept looking at me
”Now your Queen canrest in peace,” she said ”She has been avenged” The Kandake lifted her chin proudly
”Yes, indeed,” I agreed It seemed imprudent not to
I have no doubt that your scrolls will be safe in her keeping
And now to Philae, the final leg of the journey, where I shall discharge my solemn promise and co all things are finished according to your wishes
The Ro at the hands of the Nubians, and are planning reprisals But for now they are busy repairing the dae I see the toppled statue of Octavian, its neck sawed through, lying on its side near the forecourt of the great Temple of Isis
But I wish to think nobeyond this little island, with its exquisite teh to be perfect, lying before me, I want to take possession of it This is a Ptolereat dynasty that became the country it conquered Your ancestor Ptolemy V is carved on the walls, your father Ptole the inner sanctuary And inside, in the sheltering dark, is the great statue of your Goddess-acy you entrusted to me, to entrust to her I will also leave s, the story drawn out to its conclusion
All this temple is yours In some recess, invisible to me, is the chamber where you stood when you united yourself with Caesar You linger here, rerip of Rome
The old priest has accepted the scrolls without question He showed reat statue of Isis, where sacred relics are kept Reverently he has placed the ten scrolls there He awaits this final one, but he is patient Oh, very, very patient I can well believe he has been here since the first Ptolemy
Then he shows me his treasure: a statue of you, carved of tamarisk It is life-size, and the voluptuous curves and colors of the wood give it such warmth that for a ives me both joy and pain to behold it
He tells old, so that it side Isis Already you have e
It see thing, with the stern eternity of gold But just so are you transformed into a Goddess, and only in that forn forever
He tells yptian pilak, pilak, ypt, the end of our co place of your thoughts and deeds and life, guarded by Gods, saved from destruction You will never die, folded here in the e ”the end” The island was once the end of Egypt, the end of our co place of your thoughts and deeds and life, guarded by Gods, saved from destruction You will never die, folded here in the embrace of Isis
At last I believe that, and surrender you with joy
AUTHOR'S NOTE
When I set out to write a biographical novel of Cleopatra, I kept encountering two contradictory reactions, both based on misconceptions
The first was: Why a book about Cleopatra? Everyone already knows everything about her, don't they?--her perfumes, her snakes, her wiles, her lovers
Indeed, no Much of what the general public ”knows” about Cleopatra comes directly from the invective of her enemies The fact that some of her eneil, and Horace assured that their version of events would survive and become widely knohereas her side of the story would be officially suppressed